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Key points
- Intimate terrorism is a pattern of domestic violence characterized by controlling psychological tactics.
- One of the main tactics is monitoring, where one partner uses surveillance to ensure compliance.
- Other common control tactics include undermining resistance, and undermining choices.
In my work with Jenny (names and details changed), she told me how her ex-husband David used a variety of tactics to control her. In a previous post in this series, I reviewed how his violence and threats scared her into doing what he wanted, but this was only part of his pattern of control. He also used non-physical means to pressure her as well. This combination of physical and psychological tactics is used by intimate terrorists, who get this label because of their use of fear, aggression and force to control. In this post, I will discuss how David as the coercive partner used monitoring and undermining to get what he wanted in this relationship.
Monitoring
Intimate terrorists oversee their partners to ensure they are doing what they are “supposed to.” David used surveillance tactics like repeated calling or texting, and if Jenny resisted, she was scolded or yelled at. This started subtly on their first date, when David took Jenny’s phone and went through it to “see who her friends were.” This pattern escalated throughout their marriage. He would go through her emails, set up cameras in the house, and break in on her when she was showering. At one point when she was not responding to his calls and texts (her phone battery had died), he drove around town looking for her, and when he found her, he rebuked her for hours.
Undermining Resistance
Jenny described countless incidents of “badgering” and “non-stop accusing” which often occurred when she didn’t give the answer that David was seeking, even if she was telling the truth. For example, he was disproportionately preoccupied with jealousy and supposed infidelities on her part and would harass her to admit she had been with other men, even when she was adamant she hadn’t been.
This harassment led to Jenny placating David, telling him what he wanted to hear to stop the barrage of accusations. For example, after his insistence that she was attracted to specific men, she would eventually say that she was, just to stop his chewing her out. Once on a long drive together, with the kids in the back seat, he yelled at her and accused her of sleeping around, and she finally gave in and said, “Fine, I slept with your friend, are you happy?” She had not done this, but her fake confession gave David the satisfaction of being right and gave him new evidence to punish her with.
His constant harassing had the same effect as torture or other high-pressure interrogations, where the accused gives a fake confession, just to stop the torment. Jenny reported “hating conflict” so would often placate David to get some peace. He demanded that she tell him stories of her “infidelity” during their sexual relations because this was exciting to him. If she resisted going along with this, he would become angry and keep her awake. If she tried to leave, he would follow her around the house and get in her face and eventually she would give in.
Eventually David insisted that Jenny act out some of these stories, and that she needed to “seduce” men to come to their home and sleep with her. She was mortified, but David threatened to send out emails with naked pictures of her to all her contacts if she didn’t. He had all her passwords and compromising pictures and audio recordings of her “admitting” to things and was willing to use them. He began sending out suggestive emails from one of her accounts to other men to force her to follow through.
Jenny tearfully recounted how she gave in to one of these demands, and how David hid in the bedroom closet and recorded this encounter. When she tried to leave him, he sent compromising pictures and videos of her to her parents and grandparents.
Undermining Choice
Not only was Jenny’s will destroyed, but her ability to act for herself was also drastically diminished. David had accumulated evidence against her with the recordings, but he also had spread falsehood and defamation among the town law enforcement community, and even Jenny’s family as he told people that she was a bad mother, was suicidal, and a chronic liar.
David had also been successful in provoking her to become physical in self-defense. Once she scratched him because she was suffocating under his weight, so he took pictures of the marks and talked to a friend who was a physician’s assistant to make sure it was documented. This supported his story that Jenny was unpredictable and “psycho” who would lose control and lash out at random.
Another way David undermined Jenny’s resistance was his use of blame, rationalization, and minimization. He would blame her for his violence or twist the story to make it seem like her fault. Although he apologized after his first violent incident, this was accompanied by excuses where he blamed their drinking. Another time he pushed her against a wall, broke a plastic hook, and then yelled at her, insisting she admit fault. Intimate terrorists rarely take actual responsibility for their behavior.
Jenny stopped hanging out with her friends because David did not want her to. He would withhold his money from her and tell her what she could buy (or not buy) when she went shopping. He limited her access to the internet and refused professional help.
In abusive relationships it may be easier to see physical violence than it is to identify the psychological methods of control like monitoring and undermining. However, as in the case of Jenny and David, these components of coercion are just as effective, and are often just as damaging. In this next post in this series, I will discuss how control often leaves psychological scars on the soul.
